


Drunk Without a Drink

by Androids_in_Metropolis



Category: Palo Alto (2013)
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Character, Canon Gay Character, Coming Out, F/M, Fluff, Gay Character, Gen, Happy Ending, Light Angst, M/M, Romance, Sad, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-08-07
Packaged: 2018-04-13 09:15:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4516290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Androids_in_Metropolis/pseuds/Androids_in_Metropolis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fred and Teddy and April all need to work out their demons, and Fred and Teddy have something in common that they never expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drunk Without a Drink

Fred had been labeled as the kid to stay away from since day one. He hadn’t previously owned this title, instead being called ‘freak’, ‘weirdo,’ and ‘schizo’; The creativity of middle schoolers. 

Fred had mental health issues which made it hard for him to get to school on time (over sleeping on the rare days he actually fell asleep, worrying too much about what people would think, getting too nerious to get out the door), and then issues which made it hard for him to get on with people i.e teachers and fellow students. His teachers didn’t like how he wouldn’t look them in the eye when he was called on, and they disliked the fact that he often refused to answer questions either. The students thought he was being cool. They thought he knew something about life they didn’t. 

It didn’t help his image that as soon as he learned where to get cheap weed, alcohol, and cigs he was almost constantly doing one of the above. The cigarettes calmed his nerves and the weed let him forget about the world around him, pushing in, and hurting his fragile mind. The alcohol made him reckless enough to interact with the people around him without getting too nervous and clamming up. 

At first it made him seem almost normal. He would talk to the teachers if he was drunk enough to forget he was in class with ten or more pairs of eyes staring at him. He would talk to the students if he was drunk enough to care if he made a fool of himself. He would try and make friends if he was high enough to be mellow, and he could hold a conversation if he had something to do with his hands which was why he picked up smoking. 

As he got older though he lost some of the nervousness that had caused him to fall into the bad habits in the first place. He just became more and more rowdy, not knowing how to break out of the cycle he had created of drink, drunk, hung over; Smoke, cold turkey, binge; High as a kite until you fell. He was more confident than ever before, but addicted to fake promises. 

The promise of feeling better if he just took a drink. 

He had never been able to make real friends, not even after had he been labeled as ‘cool’ or ‘desirable’ by girls around the school. He was too out of it...too unreachable. Teddy was the closest thing he had been able to keep that resembled a friend. They would hang out, they would talk, and they would encourage each other to take it one step further. 

They both were unhappy. 

Teddy didn’t even know why he was unhappy-Was it the divorce? Was it his own shyness? Was it the fact that he was getting into trouble over and over again and he never meant to? He didn’t mean to do the bad things...he was just looking for a thrill. Looking for a reason to keep on looking. 

Fred was unhappy because he was hiding bits of himself from himself. He could feel the holes but he didn’t know why they were there. Fred was unhappy because he didn’t know how to not be. He didn’t know how to stop doing the things that made it worse because there was a voice in the back of his head that told him he had to do those things in order to be happy. He didn’t know that if he only asked for help he would get it. His dad had taught him that he didn’t need help from anyone, and if he did, he was weak. 

Fred wasn’t weak. Fred wasn’t a sissy. 

\------------------------

Teddy and Fred weren’t really friends, not at first. For the most part they were just another human to the other, someone to pass the time with. Someone to talk to, and laugh at and with. Someone to blame and also celebrate with. They needed each other because if they didn’t look out for each other, no one would, or that’s what it felt like. 

Teddy’s family was different than Fred’s in a lot of ways, but the biggest way was that they looked out for him. They wanted him to be okay. Even if Teddy didn’t see it most of the time, they were looking out for him. His mom would check in on him, she would worry about him, and fight with him, and fight for him. His dad would call to check in, even though his parent’s had been divorced since he was 6. His little sister even tried to keep him safe and out of trouble. 

He only started to see that after he had been through hell and back. After April had attempted to kill herself just like the Asian kid did in eighth grade. The big difference was that she lived and he didn’t. April said she understood him better now. She understood why he would think that was the best way to fix things; “Sometimes you can’t see the end of the tunnel, Teddy. Sometimes the light’s just too far away,” she had told him when he had asked her why. Why she did it.

April told him he would end up like her. She begged him to turn himself around, and even though it was the same speech his mother had given him a thousand times it hit home when April said it. She asked him to please, please look before he did anything. To please, look before he lept. She also asked him to look out for Fred. 

Teddy did as she told him, even though it was a slow climb up a relentless hill. He stopped drinking at the parties, and he convinced Fred to do so as well. He bet that his friend couldn’t do it, and that kept them both motivated to keep their promises to April. 

April had tried to blow her brains out, missing her key components by only inches. She had left a note for her parents, and for Mr. B explaining why to everyone. Mr. B was now in jail. Her parents had pressed charges and Mr. B had denied none of them. 

She had said that she felt bad for him, and she was sorry that she wasn’t the right person for him. she told her parents that she was sorry she wasn’t a good girl, and that she hadn’t passed the math exam. She said other people did it, but she just couldn’t. She said she wasn’t worth the air, and she said she was sorry for everything. 

After the drinking came the drugs. When both Teddy and Fred felt okay without drinking they moved on to drugs. Neither of them wanted to give this up, as they hadn’t found any serious repercussions to the weed like they had for the drinking. When you drank you weren’t dull, like with drugs, you were volatile. You were dangerous, and the next morning you hurt. April convinced Teddy that he could do it, but Fred was harder to pass the idea onto. 

While Teddy liked April, Fred was pushing feelings for Teddy away. He did that by not listening to him. Trying not to care what Teddy thought. Trying to keep the blush out of his cheeks when Teddy pressed his lips to his so they could share the smoke as they took their last drags on the empty road outside of Palo Alto. 

Teddy won. No more drugs, no more drinking, no more reckless behavior and spur of the moment decisions that affected anything more than weather or not they should bring ice cream p to their room and marathon the newest season of Skins together. April watched it with them, in between the boys, keeping Fred safely away from Teddy. He didn’t want to see his friend’s watering eyes and flushed cheeks, not from some sort of trip but just because he was sober enough to be emotionally invested in the show. 

Giving up the little things had been hard, but if Teddy could do it, Fred could do it too. He wouldn’t be beat. Teddy had been through withdrawal, and Fred had followed. If Teddy could do it, Fred could do it too. They both talked about how much they wanted to drink but neither of them did it. They promised each other. They had promised April. 

\--------------------------

As it went on Fred found himself becoming more and more like his old self. Sometimes he could only think of a billion ways things could go wrong. Of a thousand things he had forgotten, or missed. He would get scared right before leaving the house and want to turn back...Teddy began to see the difference, and he began to worry. 

While Fred was growing more and more fond of Teddy, especially as they saw each other sober more and more often Teddy was getting more attached to Fred as his ‘love’ for April began to peter out of fall into the bounds of a tight friendship. Teddy sometime found himself wanting to grab Fred and push him against a wall, kissing him until he couldn’t breath. 

Of course, that’s the stuff of fantasy. A very unrealistic one, at that, Teddy had to continually remind himself. He couldn’t have Fred because Fred didn’t think that way, or he didn’t think so, anyway. Instead Teddy just tried to be there for Fred. He tried to look out for him. 

As it became more and more obvious that Fred was suffering from some sort of neurosis Teddy became more and more concerned, doing research and try and find ways to help his friend. 

Fred started to miss school again, and this time he wasn’t with Teddy doing something dumb. He just called in sick, his father saying he wasn’t doing so well. His father wasn’t really thinking that...he just said whatever Fred needed him to say. 

Teddy went to Fred house after school after his third absence in a month. He noticed his friend was slowly sinking into himself, becoming more and more depressed and repetitive. From what Teddy and April could deduce he was suffering from sever anxiety and depression. April guessed he had always been that way and he had just been too drunk or high for anyone to be able to tell. 

Fred was upstairs in his bedroom. It was a messy room, and Fred’s bed was in the middle. Fred was in his bed, the blankets strewn around him and his laptop open in front of him. He was watching a movie or something, and when Teddy sat down beside him on the bed he didn’t even move or look over at him. 

“Did you know that space is just frikken huge?” Fred said, his eyes still fixed on the screen. He was wearing sweat pants and a ripped t-shirt that rode low to reveal his shoulder, which was a few shades lighter than his caramel coloured face. Teddy found himself looking at the offending patch of skin. Fred looked pretty, almost, his eyes shining and his face aglow with the light of the computer screen. 

“I did,” Teddy replied, laying down next to Fred and looking at the computer. A space documentary was zooming across the screen, beautiful nebulas and star structures being explained easily by the narrator. “Why weren’t you at school today?” Teddy asked, not looking at Fred, only at the screen. Sometimes Fred was like an animal in the way he didn’t like to be looked at. 

“I didn’t want to go...I felt like something bad would happen today,” Fred mumbled, his eyes wandering towards Teddy. “I just...I was scared.” 

Teddy looked over at Fred for a moment, their eyes meeting. 

“I promise, it’s okay,” he mumbled, turning his eyes back to the screen and awkwardly grabbing Fred’s hand, rubbing his thumb over his friend’s knuckles. “Wanna go watch a movie at the mall?” He asked, still looking at the screen. His cheeks were flushed, blood rising to his protection. 

Fred looked down at their hands, his heart picking up pace. He wasn’t sure...Maybe it wasn’t a good idea, maybe the movie theatre would be crowded. He wasn’t good with crowds unless he was drunk. He didn’t like being in the dark unless he was drunk, either. Teddy would be there though…

“I’ll be right there with you, you’ll be okay,” Teddy mumbled, squeezing Fred’s hands. “I promise.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

\---------------------------------------

Teddy convinced Fred that he needed help, and with April they went to counseling. Teddy talked about when he was depressed and reckless and ready to do anything to keep himself entertained, and how he had a secret that no one knew. April told the therapist about how sad she had been and how no one had seen. How she had needed help but was too scared to get it. She even said she planned to quit smoking. 

Fred was a different story. He was why they were there, really. He was shy about talking about himself, but slowly he told them how he had started drinking so he could be more social, about how awkward he was. About how little things seemed scary, and about the voice in his head that told him bad things would happen if he didn’t do so and so. About how little things could freak him out. How he had a secret that no one knew and would hurt people... 

Every week after they went to the session after school they would go and get pizza and talk to each other. They got closer. April saw the connection growing between the boys and she saw that the secret they both had might be the very same secret, or at least, fairly similar with the same end game. 

One day she stopped each other them in turn before they went into their private session with the government appointed counselor and told them that she knew and that the other felt the same way. It was the fastest way for the awkward half flirting to end, in her mind. She flirted with both of them and they all had a swell time, but the boys would try to flirt together while trying to keep it looking like hetero-normal bro love. 

Teddy kissed Fred that night in his car outside of his house, letting his warm lips press against his in the realist way. He was drunk on his lips without having drunk a drop, and based on the way that Fred pressed rouchy back against him he wanted the same thing. Fred stayed over that night, watching Doctor Who reruns and playing with their new found privilege; Skin for skin and words for words.

**Author's Note:**

> Please review and tell me what you think! You can contact me with prompts at Paloaltomovie2013.tumblr.com ^^


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